The Organization of the Screen
On a text-only terminal, the Emacs display occupies the whole screen.
On the X Window System, Emacs creates its own X windows to use. We use
the term frame to mean an entire text-only screen or an entire X
window used by Emacs. Emacs uses both kinds of frames in the same way
to display your editing. Emacs normally starts out with just one frame,
but you can create additional frames if you wish. See Frames.
When you start Emacs, the entire frame except for the top and bottom
is devoted to the text you are editing. This area is called the
window. At the top there is normally a menu bar where you
can access a series of menus; then there may be a tool bar, a
row of icons that perform editing commands if you click on them.
Below this, the window begins. The last line is a special echo
area or minibuffer window, where prompts appear and where you
can enter information when Emacs asks for it. See below for more
information about these special lines.
You can subdivide the large text window horizontally or vertically
into multiple text windows, each of which can be used for a different
file (see Windows). In this manual, the word "window" always
refers to the subdivisions of a frame within Emacs.
The window that the cursor is in is the selected window, in
which editing takes place. Most Emacs commands implicitly apply to the
text in the selected window (though mouse commands generally operate on
whatever window you click them in, whether selected or not). The other
windows display text for reference only, unless/until you select them.
If you use multiple frames under the X Window System, then giving the
input focus to a particular frame selects a window in that frame.
Each window's last line is a mode line, which describes what
is going on in that window. It appears in inverse video, if the
terminal supports that; its contents normally begin with
--:-- *scratch* when Emacs starts. The mode line
displays status information such as what buffer is being displayed
above it in the window, what major and minor modes are in use, and
whether the buffer contains unsaved changes.
- Point: The place in the text where editing commands operate.
- Echo Area: Short messages appear at the bottom of the screen.
- Mode Line: Interpreting the mode line.
- Menu Bar: How to use the menu bar.
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